Licensing

In the past few months, especially after the community released some Android builds of the engine, apps like “Starve game”, “Lime Minetest”, and the erstwhile “BuildCraft” have been cropping up in Google Play and the App Store. Simply put, these builds are simply a repackaging of the Minetest engine and subgame. These Minetest builds are usually obsolete, often include advertisements and do not undergo the rigorous testing subject to the Minetest engine.

The LGPL 2.1+ free software license, under which Minetest is distributed does allow implicit distribution of the compiled game, and subsequent modifications that are distributed by default.

Most games that use Minetest as their source for their (non-free?) version only link back to the original source code, not the modified source code, which must be made free for all paying (or not) paying users of the program.

Please look at: FlightGear as they have the same issue as Minetest has.

List of known Minetest forks and those recognized by the community

These are community recognized forks, or modifications to the original Minetest game, that operate under the LGPL and/or GPL, and are free to download, play and modify.

Freeminer

Freeminer is an ongoing project started by ex-Minetest developers who wanted to merge some exciting features into the main engine. Unfortunately, the features they worked on caused performance issues with the game, due to which those patches were rejected. Disillusioned by the lack of innovative development,these developers split off from the main Minetest engine, and decided to create a voxel engine where perfection is not paramount, and the main target is to make new features. It is distributed under the GPLv3

Minetest Classic

Minetest Classic is a fork of Minetest 0.3.1, which is a heavily modified version and licensed under GPL 3+, which has much more content than what the vanilla Minetest 0.3.1 contained, like farming, new biomes and more tools.

Minetest on Android

Minetest for the Android platform is in active development, with new builds being released regularly. While the builds are not currently deemed worthy of being published on the Google Play Store, they are playable, and can be downloaded from this forum page.

What to do if I spot a program that is possibly infringing Minetest's license?

If you think that a certain program is infringing on Minetest's LGPL 2.1 license, please check with the program's website to see if it is licensed under similar terms, and if the source code is being distributed. If the license seems to be proprietary, and if the developer alleges that the program is their own work, then contact celeron55. Alternatively, join the Minetest IRC channel and report it there. It doesn't matter if anyone replies or not, it will be logged and the community will check on it themselves.

What not to do if a program is infringing Minetest's license

Even if it is as clear as day that a certain program is using code and artwork from Minetest and is not distributing it under similar conditions, please do not attempt, or do the following:

1. Do not launch a witch-hunt. This is the 21^st century. Please behave appropriately.
2. Do not attempt to hack, grief, or crash their servers. They will try to file a lawsuit for hacking.
3. Do not attempt to contact the infringing program's developer. Any contact made with the developer shall be after consensus with respected members of the community at large and the Core Development Team.

The above has largely only resulted in a lot of drama, mostly ending with the infringing developer gaining the upper hand and getting away with using Minetest's code while violating the license. Please don't do it.